Students from Serbian universities have formed a political
organization called Otpor (Resistance). They are demonstrating
against Milošević's regime in Serbia. Their flag is white, with a
black fist in a black-outlined circle.
In February 2000, the movement changed its subtitle from students'
movement to people's movement.

Other flags used by Otpor - Images by Ivan
Sarajčić, 19 May 2000

There is a variant of the flag of Otpor with reversed colours.

Yesterday, when Red Star Belgrade football club (FK
Crvena Zvezda Beograd) won the Yugoslav football championship,
another variant of the Otpor flag was shown on Belgrade's largest stadium, as well as on the streets of Belgrade. It is not the usual black and white version but a red and white version. When Red Star supporters joined the
demonstrations against Milošević's regime, some of them carried this
flag. Red Star Belgrade is the most popular football club in Serbia
and Montenegro, which won the European championship in 1991, with
red-white jersey colours.

After the regime change in October 2000,
Otpor had announced that it would quit the use of
the fist symbol, as it symbolized the struggle against
the Milošević's regime, which was over then. The symbols
intended to replace the fist were the scaffold, which
symbolized the approaching reconstruction of Serbian
society, and the dredge, in memory of the dredge which
first broke into the heavily guarded building of the
state TV network on 5 October 2000 and gave the whole
event the nickname "Dredge Revolution" (Serbian: Bager
revolucija). However, none of these symbols had really
caught on and the fist symbol and the flags charged
with it were kept in continuous, although nominally
unofficial use.

On 5 October 2003, the Resistance organized a rally in
Belgrade in commemoration of the 2000 revolution,
where three new flag versions have appeared along with
the earlier ones. Their fields were green, orange and
blue (very dark, looked almost black on the TV),
respectively, and they were all charged with white
fist symbol. This occasion also seems to have been the
last appearance of the white flag of the Resistance.

On 19 November 2003, Otpor has applied for the
registration as the political party. The applicants
carried with them the red and black flags of the
organization, as could be seen on the TV. After having
been registered as the party, Otpor ran the
elections but failed to enter the People's Assembly.
The black, green and orange flags were appearing
rarely during the election campaign and seem to have
fallen out of use after December 2003, while the red
and blue flags were last seen during the campaign for
presidential elections in Serbia in 2004, in the
rallies of Boris Tadić, the candidate of the
Democratic Party (elected afterwards for the
President), who was supported by Resistance as
well.

Otpor has merged into the Democratic Party in
July 2004. However, in April 2004, many of the members
of Otpor, having accused the party leaders
for usurping the leadership and other malversations,
announced the renewal of the original non-governmental
organization. It is not known if it continued to
exist, as there were not many mentions of it
afterwards, so the flags of Otpor seem to have
fallen out of use after June 2004.

Along with the flags charged with the fist symbol,
Otpor had used a white flag with its full name -
НАРОДНИ ПОКРЕТ ОТПОР!
(NARODNI POKRET OTPOR!, People's Movement Resistance!)
- written in black in two lines, the size of letters
adjusted so that both lines occupy the same portion of
the flag length (bottom line comprised only the word
OTPOR!). After the flags with the fist were officially
abolished in October 2000, this flag was nominally the
only official flag of Otpor, although it was
still used less than those flags. It was also carried
by the participants of the rally on 5 October 2003, which
is its last use that I have recorded. It seems to have
been used rarely during the election campaign in 2003
and seems to have fallen out of use after that year.
About the name itself: the spelling on this flag was
official; in everyday use, it was usually shortened to
OTPOR (the exclamation mark was usually omitted),
which was often written with only initial letter
uppercase. The spelling with the exclamation mark has
later inspired the same thing at Kmara! of Georgia and
Pora of Ukraine.

When the Resistance was transformed into the political
party, it adopted a new, more complex variant of the
logotype: the white fist was on a blue disc, which was
surrounded with a red ring, charged with word ОТПОР (OTPOR) in
bottom part and the motto СЛОБОДА СОЛИДАРНОСТ ПРАВДА (SLOBODA SOLIDARNOST PRAVDA, "Freedom, Solidarity, Justice") in the top part, all
inscribed in white; red and blue areas were separated
with a white fimbriation. The whole logotype was designed
so as to make the illusion of a three-dimensional
object, with shadows and gleams on different parts,
party name and fist looking as if cut through the
background and the motto looking as if floating above
the ring. The logotype seems to never have appeared on any
flags during the election campaign in November and
December 2003 and was rarely seen afterwards. When
used, it was either on white or on blue background.
There was also a version with blue and red colours
reversed, which appeared on red background. With the
merger of Resistance into the Democratic Party (July
2004), it went out of use.
The image is based on a computer desktop wallpaper which was
available for free download from the Resistance web
site (no longer active).